Archive:

CIOMA Presents: Pet Projects

Photo: Jacob Doubleyou.

2 – 16 October 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

For only three weeks in October, Pet Projects coordinators Dan Bourke, Andrew Varano and Gemma Weston will transform a life-size replica of the Contemporary Institute of Modern Art into a functional gallery. Working variously as curators, artists, writers and printing press entrepreneurs, Bourke, Varano and Weston opened Pet Projects, described by critics as ‘eclectic’ or not at all, in post-post industrial Bayswater in early 2016. An innovative curated group exhibition featuring their own work, (EXHIBITION TITLE) will respond to ‘CIOMA’s site-responsive architecture, utilising found and repurposed materials to interrogate the latent subjectivity of ubiquitous domestic objects and the reciprocity of grassroots modes of exchange under late-capitalism.

During this exhibition, Pet Projects will in turn be transformed into a commemorative reconstruction of the Contemporary Institute of Modern Art, paying tribute to the short but memorable program of one of Perth’s most exclusive galleries. Artist, designer and former taco-truck proprietor Jessee Lee Johns built “CIOMA” on a vacant lot in Perth’s Southern suburbs over a period of two weeks, holding two celebrated exhibitions before the gallery was re-appropriated and eventually destroyed. In an ambitious installation, (EXHIBITION TITLE) will use cutting-edge material forms to reconstruct CIOMA’s bespoke exhibition space and urban context inside Pet Project’s warehouse gallery, exploring the transformative potential of creative thinking on urban landscapes and questioning notions of value under late-capitalism.

Viewers will be invited to encounter, reflect on and engage with this inventive new model for contemporary art, in which the space between exhibition spaces is variously delineated, compromised and dissolved.